The present invention relates to a method device and a predicting program for predicting a range of displacements of a wire harness which are caused by dimensional tolerances, fixing ways and the like for highly precisely designing a route of a wire harness arranged on a vehicle or the like.
Normally, various electric devices are mounted on a vehicle. Those electric devices are connected by use of a wire structure, called a wire harness, which is a bundle of electric wires and communication wires bundled with insulation locking bands, tape bands or the like. The wire harness is usually designed allowing for shapes of door, body and the like of the vehicle onto which the wire harness is arranged, presence of electric parts, layout of the wire harness on the wire harness assembling tool plate, and others.
The wire harness thus route-designed and mounted at predetermined locations sometimes suffers from accidental problems after the wire harness is mounted. As well known, the wire harness has specific length, diameter, weight, elasticity, rigidity and the like, and hence, has material properties similar to those of an elastic member. Fixing positions and fixing directions of the wire harness by fixing members, such as clamps, are not uniform, and dimensional tolerances in the design stage are also present.
For this reason, after the wire harness is mounted, the wire harness actually displaces or shifts from a designed arrangement within a certain range by the action of gravity, engine driving operation, vibration when the vehicle runs, and others. By such arrangement displacements of the wire harness, the wire harness will come in contact with portions or electric devices, which are not anticipated in the design stage. This results in problems of damage and the like. To avoid the problems, more precise wire harness route design is required.